Keepsake
by Scouse
Summary: A keepsake. That was all he wanted. Something of hers that he could hold and touch and see...Sana missing scene from Question Mark.


**Title:** Keepsake

**Rating:** PG-13/ T

**Author:** Me

**Pairing:** Sana

**Summary:** A keepsake. That was all he wanted. Something of hers that had could hold and touch and see...

**Warnings:** A bit of an angsty one, mentions of Sana jungle hotness.

**Author's Note:** Taking a quick breather from my Sana Baby fic. Kind of a missing scene from '?' I wanted to write something keeping Sawyer in character and yet dealing with his thoughts about Ana's death. Plus, I like Sawyer in self-destruct mode and that's what this is.Hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** We all know I don't own this because Ana would be alive and kickin' if I did.

**Keepsake.**

It slipped off so easily that it was almost criminal. Well, it _was_ criminal, what he was doing. He had apparently stooped to new depths, had hit an all time low, a new record for the worst thing that he could possibly do in the current situation. It beat the Shannon's inhaler incident hands down.

Stealing from the dead. No, not _just_ stealing from the dead, from the lifeless form of Ana-Lucia Cortez, but using Libby's dire situation, her waning life, her agonizingly slow descent into death, as a distraction.

Freckles was helping Jacko administer the retrieved heroine in order to make Libby's passing (which was inevitable by now) as comfortable as was possible considering that she'd been shot twice in the belly. Mickey hovered there, watching them from the other side of the room, nursing his injured arm, chewing on a thumbnail nervously and Hurley sat beside him, a man emotionally collapsed. How did a guy that big suddenly seem so small, so frail, so lifeless himself?

Sawyer didn't know. He couldn't answer any of the questions kicked up in the heat of the moment, like _where_ did Gale go? _How_ did he manage to shoot three people unawares? _Why_ was he even out of the armoury that Sawyer was currently kneeling in, beside Ana's motionless form, where Eko had laid her, crossing her hands over the bloody bullet wound marring her chest.

He'd paused the very second that he had entered, listening at the half closed doorway to make sure that no one was going to walk in on him before he'd done what he'd come to do. But that hadn't been the only reason for his hesitance to move, to turn and face her once he'd slipped within.

The air in the dingy box-room was like a cold blanket being laid across his skin. As if the chill was trying to force it's way into him through his pores and work it's way into his heart, where he was purposely keeping it from taking up residence. It felt like he was swimming, as he turned, trying to move through water making his motions sluggish and heavy. Lead. His limbs had turned into lead. Or stone. Or granite. It took him a hundred years to force himself around to look down upon her.

At least her eyes had been closed now. At least he didn't have to see the blank, glassy-eyed stare into nothingness, into death, that he had witnessed when he'd first seen her slumped back into the armchair.

He'd swallowed hard, fighting down the foolish hope that bubbled and swelled in his chest. She looked like she was sleeping. That was all. Resting her eyes and yet ready to leap into action the minute that he made a single noise.

"But you're not…" he murmured, beneath breath and below hearing. "…are you, Chachi?"

She did not offer a reply. No protest to his dubious pet-name, no challenging retort to counter him with, no bitchy comeback, no curled lips, no flirtatious smirk, no half lidded eyes, no gasped intake of breath as she moved against him. None of that. Just stillness. Just quiet. Just death.

The hushed murmuring of Hurley and Michael conversing woke him from his speeding thoughts, running a million miles per second, and he took his first step towards her, towards the reality of it all.

He didn't realise that his second step buckled beneath him and sent him to his knees at her side.

She was asleep and if he just reached out his hand and touched her, she would wake angry and fiery and every part the ferocious little bitch that had come after him doggedly that afternoon. A mere few hours ago.

Only when his fingers brushed across the skin of her arm did he finally feel the hope in his chest pop and deflate to become a painful sickly feeling deep in his stomach.

She was dead. Skin that he'd felt against him, heated and slick with their sweat combined, was now cold and abnormally pale, even if he was vaguely aware that he was smiling at the fact that she still smelt of him. How the Doc and Freckles in particular had missed that one when they'd spoken with her earlier, how Eko hadn't caught on when he'd carried her in there and lain her down, praying over her, _for_ her, he wasn't sure.

"Gimme your best, huh?" he queried in an exhalation that made the ebony curls framing her still face shift and dance lightly. "Baby, _no one _could ever gimme _your_ best…"

Perhaps it was wrong of him to keep allowing his mind to wander as she lay there in death. Perhaps it made him more of a bad person than he already was to keep seeing the flashes of her sat astride him in his mind. Like photographs, snap shots in his memory.

She had cupped his face, so gently that it surprised him, smoothing the pads of her thumbs across his cheeks and he stared up at her, into her face and eyes, the entire world, save for each other, cut off from around them by curtains of jet black silk that fell about them in the form of her hair. Beautiful hair. He'd found himself desperate to touch it even then, brushing it back from her features and wishing that she left it out more often.

He touched her hair then with his free hand, the one that wasn't loosely wrapped about her wrist, and it was just the way he remembered it. Still smooth, still soft, still falling in waves and kinks and beautiful, beautiful curls. It still smelt of the jungle, still smelt of _him_, like her skin did and yet it still retained that fragrance that was distinctly her. Spice and fire and the salty sea that she had braved every morning to swim in.

He stroked her hair back once more before drawing a deep, steadying breath and moving his hand back to where his other lay, resting atop both of hers. Where Eko had laid them. Cool fingers were so easy to twine together with his. Hard knuckles, he'd felt them before and he'd not likely forget them in a hurry. Nails kept short and practical and yet not chewed and cracked and bitten down to the quick like Freckles' were. Neat, glossy, well cared for and that surprised him. He studied the lines of her palm, twisting her hand so that he could do so. Traced the lifeline with his little finger. Gentle. It had been long. She was supposed to have lived for many more years then, but they had been stolen from her by two men. Henry Gale and himself.

If he had ignored her advances, if he'd kept a closer check on his weapons, _both_ of his weapons, if he'd watched her and her light fingers more closely she wouldn't be there right now, lying on the bed of the man that had killed her.

The urge then to lift her up, to cradle her body in his arms and move her to somewhere _not_ tainted by her killer was almost overwhelming and his hands wavered with the desire to do so. But he forced himself to remain where he was, his travelling fingers, mapping her out for his memory, shifted from reading her palm to the cold metal of the band on her wedding ring finger.  
_  
'Thought you said you weren't hitched…' _he'd gasped, catching both his breath and a fleeting glimpse of silver as they drew apart and she curled her hair behind her ears, from their way, with deft fingers.  
_  
'I did. And I'm not.'_ She responded and the topic was never broached again as far more important notions took it's place.

Maybe she'd been lying to him then. Maybe she really had had a fella waiting for her back home. Probably was a straight-laced, good guy. The type who drove a Mercedes and took out the garbage every Tuesday. A guy who told her that he loved her every day. No seedy background there. No murder in his past. No issues, no problems showing his emotions and letting people see who he really was. Nope.

Then again, maybe she'd been telling the truth. Maybe she hadn't been superstitious enough to believe that wearing a ring on your wedding finger before engagement was bad luck. Was that singular, simple thing, wearing a ring on the wrong finger, the reason so much adversity had befallen Ana-Lucia? Nope. That idea was almost as crazy as believing the _'hocus-pocus' _of palm reading to be reliable.

Sawyer spun the ring about her finger carefully, eyes trained upon her face, almost as if he expected to see some sign of fury radiating from her as he slipped the metal band down towards her fingertip. Easing it past her granite hard knuckle, careful not to scratch that well cared for nail, into the centre of his palm.

It had slipped off so easily. It slipped off so easily that it was almost _criminal_. It _was_ criminal and guilt, fresher than that which he already carried from a lifetime ago, before the crash, before any of this, before he even _knew_ who she was, rose up bitter and sharp within him, tainting his tongue until he almost retched with it.

A keepsake. That was all he wanted. Something of hers that he could hold and touch and see and think to himself _'Little Miss Mariachi held this. Touched this. Wore this on her finger.'_ And at the same time he hoped for the same punishment, the same bad luck to befall him. He deserved it after all. Perhaps this ring, unlucky as it was, would bring misfortune down upon him. Perhaps it would unleash upon him enough punishment for his sins, past and present and future, to be paid and atoned for. Perhaps…and yet he hoped not in the same instant. He hoped the hardship would never end for him. For his part that he had played in her death. While the faux Henry Gale had shot her, had pulled the trigger and pierced her body irreparably, he, Sawyer, James Ford, had loaded the damn thing. Had let her get her hands on it. Had been so pleased with himself for actually getting some 'action' that he'd not noticed the gun was missing until it was far too late.

It was his fault.

His fingers closed about the ring, into a tight fist. As tight as he could squeeze it, the silver heating almost immediately as if life was suddenly flowing through it once again. He felt its edges biting into the fleshy part of his palm and into his fingertips. It ripped at his skin mercilessly and he never wanted it to stop.

"Don't mind if I borrow this, Amiga." He murmured down to her, permitting himself one last stroke of her shadowy tresses, lain neatly now over one shoulder, before he stood to his full height again, knees cracking in protest. He held the tiny ring, not even big enough to fit halfway down his littlest finger, up to the dim light, for her spirit to see if she was at all still in the room. "Got me a feelin' I'll be joinin' you some time in the near future anyways. You can have it back then. Promise I won't lose it or nothin'."

And she didn't object. Not that she couldn't, a little thing like death wouldn't have stopped Ana-Lucia Cortez from objecting to something if she didn't agree with it. No, instead the coldness of the air lifted slightly, shifting away from where it had pressed into him and he felt a little of his previous warmth return to him slowly. He had her blessing to take it then as he turned and silently slipped from the room, closing the door fully behind him.

Or maybe he had an overactive imagination.

Which it was, he didn't particularly care right then and the ring, silver and small and unlucky though it was, had taken up residence safely in his pocket.

His keepsake.

**-oOo-**


End file.
